Same Old John F. Kerry

From a Newsweek article about a recent interview with John Kerry.

On this damp November evening, he appeared alone in the house; he answered the door and showed his visitor into a cozy, book-lined drawing room. His face was deeply lined, his eyes drooped, he looked like he hadn't slept in about two years.

Wonder if he had a long face, too?

Why did he lose? Kerry points to history and, in a somewhat inferential, roundabout way, to his own failure to connect to voters—a failure that kept him from erasing the Bush campaign's portrait of him as a flip-flopper. Kerry said that he was proud of his campaign, that he had nearly defeated a popular incumbent who had enjoyed a three-year head start on organizing and fund-raising. Sitting presidents are never defeated in wartime, he insisted (true, though two, LBJ and Harry Truman, chose not to run for another term during Vietnam and Korea). Kerry did not wish to be directly quoted touting himself, however; he did not wish to appear defensive or boastful.

Catch that nuance?

That evening in November, he told NEWSWEEK, "I'm not going to go lick my wounds or hide under a rock or disappear. I'm going to learn. I've had disappointments and I've learned to cope. I've lost friends, a marriage; I've lost things in life."

"As a matter of fact, just last week, I was staying out on the Cape and it took almost an hour for the hotel valet to find the family's SUV. For a moment, an eerily familiar feeling of disappointment began to set in. It was actually quite quaint."

Next week he will leave a family vacation in Idaho (he had planned to do some skiing, mountain climbing and skeet shooting) to travel to the Middle East and Iraq.

Time to order some brand new supplies from the outfitter - "Jeeves, just find out what real mountain climbers wear and order that."

As this reporter left his house in November, Kerry called out and followed him down the street. He wanted to show a letter from a schoolgirl that had been left on his stoop. The letter read, in part, "John Kerry, you're the greatest!"

It's good to know that he and John Edwards still talk.